ORONO — University of Maine Athletic Director Steve Abbott has announced the hiring of Maureen Barron as interim softball coach. Barron comes to the University of Maine with seven seasons of head coaching experience at Princeton coupled with an overall record of 196-149-1.

Barron is the wife of UMaine women’s basketball head coach Richard Barron. She will just direct the fall program while a national search is conducted to land a permanent coach.

“We are very grateful to Maureen Barron for agreeing to serve as our interim softball coach,” Abbott said in a press release. “She has a great track record as a student-athlete and head softball coach at Princeton. There is no question that she will do a wonderful job until we name a permanent head coach.

“I am thrilled to be here at the University of Maine and thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the softball program for as long as they need me,” commented Barron. “We have only been here for a week but I can already tell what a wonderful, supportive athletic community it is. I am looking forward to getting to know the girls and doing all I can to make us the best we can be on the field every day.”

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Barron, the mother of 7-year-old twin daughters Lane and Rae and 5-year-old son Billy, quipped, “after being involved with T-ball and Coach-Pitch (with her kids), I’m excited to get back into college coaching.”

She is meeting with the Maine players this week and will monitor the weight training and conditioning program along with the on-field fall softball regimen.

Barron, a Toronto native, said she would be interested in remaining with the program if the new coach wants her to assist her and she doesn’t have to travel much. Her top priority is raising her family, she explained.

A 1997 Princeton graduate, Barron guided the Tigers to four Ivy League titles during her seven years with the program. Barron participated in seven NCAA tournaments with the Tigers as both a player and a coach as she pitched the Tigers to the 1995 and 1996 Women’s College World Series after the program enjoyed its first tournament experience in 1994.

Barron became the head coach at Princeton for the 2000-01 season following a short stint as a graduate student at the University of Virginia. Barron was appointed head coach at Princeton after she spent the 2000 season as an assistant with the Tigers’ softball program.

Barron wasted no time in returning the Tigers to prominence as she guided the 2002 squad back to the NCAA tournament. Princeton kept the high quality of play up under Barron’s leadership as the Tigers returned to the NCAA tournament in 2003, 2005 and 2006.

During her seven years at Princeton, Barron coached two Ivy League Players of the Year, three Ivy League Rookies of the Year and four Iyy League Pitchers of the Year.